IPPN

Published: 22 March 2017

In January, Minister for Education and Skills Richard Bruton TD spoke about the role of religion in the school admissions process, stating that he believes it is unfair that:

• a non-religious family, or a family of a different religion, living close to their local publicly-funded school finds that preference is given to children of the same religion as the school living some distance away

• parents, who might otherwise not do so, feel pressure to baptise their children in order to gain admission to the local school.

The Minister set out four possible approaches for dealing with this issue (click here for more details) and sought the views of those who might be impacted by the proposed changes or have views on the proposed changes.

IPPN decided to respond as it is an issue that affects a significant number of schools. In a short survey, we sought the views of school leaders on the four approaches put forward by the Minister.

The following are the key results:

In addition to the above, IPPN used members’ responses to answer the questions in relation to impact that were asked by the DES.

Click here to view the IPPN submission